National Grid seeks permit for communications tower in Worcester's Tatnuck area

Nick Kotsopoulos, TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

Published Tuesday October 8, 2013 at 7:10 pm

Updated Tuesday October 8, 2013 at 8:33 pm

WORCESTER — National Grid has proposed a new location in the Tatnuck area for a specialized communications tower for its smart grid pilot program in Worcester.

The electric company has petitioned the Zoning Board of Appeals for a special permit and variance to allow for the construction of a 90-foot-high, ground-mounted monopole on property it owns at 597 Mill St.

The tower would have three so-called WiMAX and two microwave antennas attached to the pole, which will serve as a transmission structure as part of National Grid's Smart Energy Solutions program, also referred to as its "smart grid" program.

The site where National Grid wants to erect the pole is an electric substation, next to a shopping center at Mill and Chandler streets. It is also near the Worcester Housing Authority's Mill Pond Apartments at 600 Mill St. and an apartment complex off Brookside Avenue behind the shopping center.

National Grid originally had proposed putting the communications tower at its Cooks Pond electric substation at 30 Tory Fort Lane in the Tatnuck area, but it ran into strong opposition from neighborhood residents.

At a meeting of the City Council Public Service and Transportation Committee in August, representatives of National Grid said the utility had tabled its plan to put the tower at the Tory Fort Lane substation. Based on feedback National Grid received during meetings with neighborhood residents and city officials, it decided to explore other options and conduct further signal testing to see if another site for its WiMAX tower could be located.

To construct the tower at its Mill Street substation, National Grid needs a special permit to allow a wireless facility in a business-general zoning district, and a zoning variance because the height limit in that zone is 40 feet. The zoning board has scheduled a public hearing for National Grid's petition for 5:30 p.m. Oct. 21 in the Levi Lincoln Chamber at City Hall.

As part of the smart grid pilot program, National Grid wants to construct a communications infrastructure at four electric substations, so data about the electrical grid system could be passed along throughout various parts of the city. The Zoning Board of Appeals already has granted special permits so National Grid can erect personal wireless service facilities at three substations: Vernon Hill (10 Gloucester Road and 245 Vernon St.), Greendale (4 Naples Road) and the Bloomingdale station off Wigwam Avenue.

A smart grid is an "intelligent" electricity distribution network that uses two-way communications, advanced sensors and specialized computers that can help reduce customers' energy use and facilitate greater reliability, efficiency and availability of the electricity distribution system. At each of the four locations, National Grid will install WiMAX towers that would collect data transmitted from "smart meters" installed for 15,000 customers so it can be passed along to the utility and back to customers through Internet and mobile apps.

The meters are intended to give the utility more pinpointed information about customer usage and provide customers a better sense of how they use electricity. But the program has run into strong opposition from some people, who have expressed concerns about the impact of radio and electromagnetic frequencies, and potentially harmful radiation emanating from the communications infrastructure at the substations.

National Grid officials have said the communications technology it will use for the smart grid has been proven safe worldwide.